The Naughty Little Brother's Wolfish Ambitions, and the Strange Fountain Pen

The two of them took the elevator down to the first floor.

Lu Yuan followed Li Qinghe deep into the headquarters building until they stood before a set of large black double doors.

Two Gene Warriors with powerful auras stood guard outside. Lu Yuan swept his gaze over them and found, to his surprise, that both were Battle Venerables.

Battle Venerables might not count for much at the Talent Camp or on the Prodigy Rankings — but across the Red Maple Empire as a whole, a Battle Venerable was already considered a genuine powerhouse.

The fact that even the entrance had two of them standing watch said plenty about what lay beyond.

When the guards spotted Li Qinghe and Lu Yuan, they snapped to attention:

"Elder Li!"

Li Qinghe gave a slight nod. "Open the doors. I need to go down to the basement."

As she spoke, she produced a black token engraved with a golden sword and shield, a ring of stars encircling its edge.

The Night Watchman Elder's Token.

"This..."

The two Battle Venerables exchanged a glance, then looked over at Lu Yuan, uncertainty flickering across their faces.

Li Qinghe smiled. "No need to worry. My little brother Yuan is a brand-new Honorary Elder with our organization."

Lu Yuan produced his own Elder's Token and held it out.

It had come together with his contract — every Honorary Elder received one. Lu Yuan was no exception.

The guards took both tokens and ran them across a scanning device one by one. When the device lit up green, both men exhaled quietly.

They looked at Lu Yuan and Li Qinghe and smiled.

"Please, go right in, Elders."

With that, they pulled open the black doors.

Lu Yuan and Li Qinghe stepped through.

Beyond the doors lay a wide, empty room. In the corner, a middle-aged man sat cross-legged with his eyes shut, meditating in stillness. He only opened his eyes once they entered.

The middle-aged man broke into a smile.

"Elder Li — and this must be... Lu Yuan? What brings him here?"

He looked at Lu Yuan, visibly surprised.

Li Qinghe smiled. "Elder Wang, my little brother has joined the Night Watchmen. He's already at Battle King Rank, so naturally he's become an Honorary Elder — same as me."

At that, Elder Wang's eyes went wide. He stared at Lu Yuan, shock written plainly across his face.

He opened his mouth as if to say something, then fell silent. After a moment he gave a rueful laugh and shook his head.

"You really do feel like nothing next to some people. These two — each one more talented than the last. Me, reaching Battle King was the ceiling for this lifetime. It's a brave new world out there."

He sighed softly, then smiled. "Headed below?"

"Mm. My little brother only just joined the Night Watchmen, and he doesn't know much about Aberration Entities. I thought I'd bring him down to take a look."

"Good idea — he really should."

Elder Wang nodded, then channeled Spirit Power into a black device beside him.

A crack split open in the center of the floor, revealing a staircase descending into the depths.

Torches lined the walls on either side at regular intervals.

The flames burned and guttered. Deep down, the staircase looked dim and desolate.

*Why no lights?* Lu Yuan wondered, though he kept the question to himself.

Li Qinghe took his hand. "Come on, let's go."

Once they had descended, the crack above them sealed shut again.

The staircase wound downward, burrowing deeper and deeper into the earth with no apparent end.

After walking for a while, Lu Yuan noticed there was still no lighting. He couldn't hold back any longer.

"Qinghe, why aren't there any lights down here?"

Li Qinghe smiled. "A few of the Aberration Entities stored below are extremely sensitive to light. Any light source at all and they'll react."

Lu Yuan blinked. "There are Aberration Entities that bizarre?"

Li Qinghe nodded, her expression grave. "Many Aberration Entities have deeply unusual abilities. Some of them — if you don't know what they're capable of — could spell disaster even for a Battle Emperor."

Lu Yuan found that unsettling, which only made him more curious.

They walked on a while longer before the floor finally came into view.

It was made of black metal plating, roughly ten meters wide. As the two of them stepped onto it, Lu Yuan looked around.

The environment was dim, but Lu Yuan now possessed Shadow Dominion — a darkness-attribute gene — and even in complete blackness he could see with perfect clarity.

About ten meters down the corridor, a door stood open; through a small window he could make out someone sitting inside. Further ahead — perhaps a hundred meters — the corridor opened into a wide expanse, and beyond that, rows of doors lined both sides of the passage. There was no telling what was kept inside.

Li Qinghe led Lu Yuan toward the open door.

Drawing closer, Lu Yuan saw there were five Gene Warriors within.

An old man, two middle-aged men, a stunning young woman, and one young man.

When Li Qinghe appeared, the others turned to look.

The young man in particular — his eyes lit up and he immediately got to his feet, smiling.

"Elder Li, what brings you down here?"

Li Qinghe walked in with Lu Yuan in tow, beaming as she made introductions.

"This is Lu Yuan. You've all heard the name, I imagine?"

The old man's eyes brightened. He studied Lu Yuan with a look of warm approval.

"Ha — heard it indeed. The number-one genius on the Prodigy Rankings, the pride of Great Qi Star. You've come this far down, which means you've joined the Night Watchmen, young man?"

Lu Yuan smiled and nodded. "Yes, Senior. I've just joined, same as Qinghe — as an Honorary Elder."

The old man stroked his white beard, nodding with satisfaction. "Good, good."

The two middle-aged men and the stunning young woman were equally intrigued, all studying Lu Yuan openly.

"Then we'll be calling you Elder Lu. My, my... so young. Not even twenty, are you?"

"I turned twenty a few months ago, actually."

One of the men — lean and wiry — looked genuinely astonished. "Good lord. Twenty years old, already an Honorary Elder. And your cultivation rank... Battle King?"

The other man, slightly heavyset with a round, affable face, exclaimed:

"When we were twenty, I think we were Battle General? Or Battle Venerable?"

"Battle General, you fool. You didn't break through to Battle Venerable until you were thirty. Don't flatter yourself."

The lean man rolled his eyes, delivering the verdict without mercy.

The heavyset man scratched his head and looked at Lu Yuan with undisguised admiration. "Truly remarkable."

Beside them, the stunning young woman's eyes shimmered as she fixed her gaze on Lu Yuan, smiling softly.

"Elder Lu's name has been making the rounds for quite some time now. Meeting in person always surpasses the reputation — even more handsome than I imagined. Heh heh~"

*...Was I just flirted with?* Lu Yuan thought.

Beside him, Li Qinghe's eyes narrowed just slightly. She looked at the young woman and said, pleasantly:

"Elder Bu Na, my little brother isn't susceptible to that sort of thing. Save it for someone else."

Bu Na covered her mouth with a smile. "My, my, Elder Li — that possessiveness of yours is quite a rare sight."

Li Qinghe's expression stiffened. She shot Bu Na a sharp look.

Bu Na simply smiled and let it drop. She had no interest in provoking Li Qinghe's temper — she was no match for her, and she knew it.

Listening to the exchange — Bu Na's comments in particular — a shadow passed through the young man's eyes as he looked at Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan felt it and glanced his way.

Catching Lu Yuan's eye, the young man gave a stiff smile.

"I'm Luo Lou."

And then said nothing more.

The others exchanged glances, brows subtly raised, expressions momentarily caught between amusement and awkwardness.

Reading the room, Lu Yuan understood at once. He gave Li Qinghe a mildly curious look.

*So this one has feelings for Qinghe. Judging by his age, he can't be much older than me — and if he's made it to Battle King Rank, he must have real talent.*

The corner of his mouth twitched. He wasn't about to twist the knife for Luo Lou's sake.

Li Qinghe seemed entirely unbothered. She looked at the old man and said with a smile:

"Elder Zhang, I'd like to bring my little brother to see the Aberration Entities inside."

Zhang Zhen smiled warmly and nodded. "Go ahead. Young people really do need to understand Aberration Entities properly. Events have been increasing, and it's talented young people like you two who'll protect the Empire and guard ordinary people down the line."

Lu Yuan thought of the Aberration Event he had encountered before his own Awakening — the one that had shattered his predecessor's family. And the one after his Awakening, which had claimed many lives in the Slum District.

He let out a quiet breath, nodded, and said with quiet sincerity: "Understood, Senior."

If it was within his power, Lu Yuan genuinely wanted to bring Aberration Events to an end. They caused too much harm.

And beyond that... there were also the Spatial Rifts to deal with.

The Endless Mountain Range Forbidden Zone and the Ice Flame Rift Valley Forbidden Zone on the Red Maple Empire's borders had both formed because of Spatial Rifts.

Thinking about Spatial Rifts — something sparked in Lu Yuan's eyes.

His Spatial Type gene had already reached Sovereign Grade, and his command over spatial forces was already formidable.

If he were to fully temper that gene to perfection, he might actually have a chance of sealing some of the smaller Spatial Rifts.

He thought back to the Spatial Rift on Ice Vein Star.

If the rift was only of that scale, and if Starfield Roaming was tempered to perfection, there was a real chance of closing it entirely.

A quiet excitement stirred in him.

Once Starfield Roaming was fully perfected, he'd go to Ice Vein Star first and seal the Spatial Rift on the Gnoll side.

With no connection to their side remaining, humans would have sole access to the surviving rift, with nothing to fear from Gnoll interference.

As for what had unfolded after the Ice Vein Star contest — Lu Yuan had heard the rest from Si Tingyu during his cultivation sessions afterward.

On the surface, the Blood Bone Gnolls had handed the mining rights over to the humans. Behind the scenes, though, they'd been causing trouble — triggering Beast Tides to disrupt mining operations, assassinating human warriors, manufacturing disasters, and worse.

Humans hadn't managed to gather concrete evidence, but the fact that the Blood Bone Gnolls had never actually departed Ice Vein Star made it obvious they hadn't given up.

Once he sealed the Gnoll-side rift, those that remained would be completely cut off, with no reinforcements and no way home. It would be sealing the cage shut before finishing the fight.

*Can't wait*, Lu Yuan thought coldly.

With that decided, Lu Yuan planned to rearrange his tempering order — Starfield Roaming first.

Handle the Spatial Rift. Then figure out the rest.

Lu Yuan and Li Qinghe left the room and walked down the corridor toward the Aberration Entity storage section.

"What are you thinking about, little brother?"

Noticing that Lu Yuan had gone quiet, Li Qinghe glanced at him with a flicker of curiosity.

Lu Yuan came back to himself and smiled, looking over at her. "I was thinking about Luo Lou back there. That's an admirer of yours, isn't it?"

Li Qinghe raised an eyebrow, and a faint, teasing smile curved her lips.

"I have plenty of admirers. What's wrong — jealous?"

Lu Yuan cocked an eyebrow. As they walked, he reached out and took her hand, his smile easy and unhurried.

"What would I have to be jealous about?"

Li Qinghe hadn't expected him to be that bold. She went slightly rigid — Lu Yuan could feel it quite clearly — and she seemed, unmistakably, a little flustered.

*Interesting*, he thought, suppressing a grin.

For someone who talked such a good game, she's really quite easy to fluster when it comes down to it.

She seemed to catch the look on his face and shot him a glare.

"I didn't expect the little brother I picked up to harbor such wolfish ambitions."

Lu Yuan grinned. "Well, once picked up, might as well put to use. It's not like you'd throw me back, would you?"

Li Qinghe couldn't hold back a laugh. "You naughty little thing."

Just then, a glimmer of surprise crossed Lu Yuan's eyes.

The Evolution Cube within him had begun to vibrate.

And not slowly, either.

He looked ahead. He was still roughly thirty meters from the nearest room in the corridor.

His eyes narrowed. He smiled.

"Qinghe, are those the rooms where the Aberration Entities are kept?"

Li Qinghe's expression turned serious. "Yes. Every Aberration Entity we recover gets stored here. Most Aberration Events don't leave anything physical behind — but some do produce Aberration Entities. These can't be destroyed, so they're kept here under constant supervision."

Lu Yuan nodded. They quickly arrived at the first room.

The door had a small window. Lu Yuan peered through it.

The room was tiny — barely five or six square meters. In the center sat a display stand with a transparent case, and inside the case rested a single black fountain pen.

"A fountain pen?"

Lu Yuan was thoroughly baffled.

By every measure, it looked like an ordinary fountain pen.

Li Qinghe's eyebrow quirked. "It's anything but ordinary. If you hold it and write with it, invisible blades appear somewhere on your body — tracing the exact characters you're writing, carving them into your flesh at a random location. If it appears on the skin, you might survive. But if it appears on your eyes... or on your heart..."

The implication made Lu Yuan's mouth go dry.

Carved onto the heart — what could possibly survive that?

Carved inside the eye — you'd be blind, surely.

"How does it manage that? Some kind of built-in Combat Technique? But is there really a Combat Technique that only harms the one using it?"

Li Qinghe shook her head, expression grave. "If it were only a Gene Armament with a Combat Technique, it wouldn't qualify as an Aberration Entity. This pen has been examined many times. It's made of ordinary materials — it's not a Gene Armament, not even a weapon by any measure. And yet the moment someone holds it and writes, this happens. We've tested it on death row inmates. Even with a Battle Emperor standing watch, no one has ever been able to determine how the pen does it. Not a trace of Spirit Power fluctuation to detect."

Lu Yuan: *...*

He was beginning to realize that Aberration Entities were far stranger than he had ever imagined.